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So I let it out. “Harold was still murdered, and I’m still a suspect, I think.”
“You think?” Merlin asked.
“Well, Officer Dash was the one inspecting things, and apparently she wasn’t a real cop. That’s the part I’m not sure about.” I bit my lip as I waited to hear his theory on all of this.
“The illusion witch?” Luna asked, and I nodded. I guess I could take answers from whichever cat wanted to give them.
“She won’t be sticking around here where she’s so easy to find,” Luna assured me. “Besides, your bond with Merlin is now unbreakable. He’ll be able to find and rescue you from anywhere.”
“So the investigation is dead in the water?”
“The investigation was never truly alive. Dash fabricated the whole thing from the start,” Merlin concluded with a smug grin.
But I still felt uneasy. “How do you know?”
“Because I saw the body, remember? I could tell he’d been murdered by magic, but to the common human observer, it would seem as though Harold passed of a severe and sudden heart attack.”
I shook my head, wanting to trust him on this but also needing to be sure. “I don’t understand. How did Dash expect me to take the fall for this, if everything looked normal?”
“We can’t know her exact motivations, but as an illusion witch, she had many options available to her,” Luna explained as Merlin purred at her side. “She could have posed as a jailer, fabricated reports, made you think you were being arrested by humans but then taken you to some kind of magical holding cell. The good news is she won’t try the same thing twice, so for now you can stop worrying about her.”
I sighed. “How can I stop worrying, knowing that she’ll almost certainly be back?”
“That’s a problem for another day,” Luna told me. “Right now, bask in the moment. Live your love.”
Oh, brother. I rolled my eyes hard, but neither of the two lovebirds seemed to notice or mind.
Still, I felt awful. “Fine, fine, so I’m off the hook for now, but an innocent man still died.”
“That is unfortunate, but it’s not like we can make it up to him,” Merlin told me.
“To him, no. But there is someone else. And I have an idea…”
28
After our big confrontation came to its official close, Merlin teleported the three of us home.
Eventually I’d need to find my way back to my car, providing it hadn’t been towed in my absence. But for now, I just needed to pop a couple painkillers and take some time to veg out on my couch.
I changed into my favorite pair of pajamas and then lay across the sofa with my tablet, wholly prepared to binge that new Netflix show everyone had been gushing about. Unfortunately, the opening credits hadn’t even finished rolling before Merlin jumped up onto my chest and blocked my view of the portable screen.
“I’ve asked Luna to move in with us, and she’s agreed,” he informed me with a rumbling purr.
Well, this kind of felt like a thing he should have asked me first, but even I understood that Luna had nowhere else to go. And even though I’d never known great love myself, I clearly recognized it in these two. I wanted them to be together and happy, even if that meant adding another roommate.
“Congratulations,” I said with a sleepy smile.
Merlin nodded at me. “Okay. Just making sure you knew how things would be. As you were.”
While I tucked into my show, Merlin gave Luna the grand tour of our house, which wasn’t all that grand, given its small size and outdated furniture. Still, I occasionally heard her gushing and exclaiming over things like the shower curtain, coffee maker, and litter box. True, the coffee maker was impressive, but the other things? I guess she preferred my grandma’s hodgepodge aesthetic to Virginia’s all florals all the time.
Somewhere into my third episode, the pet door opened and closed with a swish. I assumed the two lovebirds had gone out for a walk through the neighborhood, but a moment later, Luna jumped onto the coffee table and waited for me to pause my show before speaking.
“I sent Merlin out for a while,” she said, adjusting herself into a more comfortable position. “To give us two girls some time to talk.”
I sat up and patted the couch beside me. “What’s up?”
Luna hopped over and took a quick breath before launching into what seemed to be a prepared speech. “At first I wasn’t sure you were worthy of my Merlin. That’s why I gave you such a hard time. But today you proved yourself more than worthy. You were very brave, but moreover, you were there for him in a terrifying situation. And you did not run or abandon him. I was wrong about you, and I want to apologize for that.”
